The invention relates generally to interconnecting circuit boards and, more particularly, to a guide receptacle for mating a stacked arrangement of circuit boards to a common backplane.
As more functionality is added to electrical circuits and as electrical components become more miniaturized, the demand for circuit board interfaces with multiple interface connections has increased. Additional challenges are produced by the increasing speeds and density of signals transmitted across circuit board interfaces. It may be desirable to address these issues without adding bulk or complexity to the systems.
One approach to addressing these issues is in the use of stacked or tiered daughter boards with connectors on both boards that are interfaced in a perpendicular relationship with a common backplane or mid plane board. Heretofore, tiered circuit boards were arranged using standoffs to mechanically link the daughter boards together. While standoffs join the circuit boards together, they are not closely coupled to the interface connectors. As a result, tolerance issues may cause misalignment of the interface connectors. The lack of precision in positioning the circuit boards with standoffs may cause mating problems with the connectors.
With the growing demand for interface connectors on multiple stacked boards that interface to a common backplane, problems with tolerances and precision in circuit board alignment remain.